WinMagic's SecureDoc package provides advanced encryption standard (AES) encryption of the entire hard drive. It also supports two-factor authentication through the use of smart cards and USB tokens.
The software to read the provided token was not readily available on the accompanying CD, so we decided to use password authentication, which was much easier to configure.
At two hours, SecureDoc was in the middle of the pack in terms of the time it took the products we tested to encrypt our drive. However, once the drive was encrypted, the Performance Test software reported a hard-drive speed degradation of 26.5 per cent after the install of the SecureDoc disk encryption software, the greatest slowing down we came across. This was the only product tested that provided logging using a proprietary interface even in standalone mode.
SecureDoc was very easy to install with the small exception of the USB token. The quick-start guide that was provided was all we needed to get the software ready for use. The product uses pre-boot authentication.
Documentation for this solution comes in the form of PDF files, which are indexed, searchable and easy to navigate. The product is simple to configure and the quick-start guide is more than sufficient for most types of installation.
WinMagic offers phone and email support, as well as online assistance in the form of a frequently asked questions, plus a support download file section.
Generally speaking, while we were impressed with SecureDoc's ease of use and feature set, we were disappointed with its generally slow performance when the encryption package was installed. We also think the pricing could be more competitive.
Priced at the higher end of the spectrum in this group test, WinMagic's SecureDoc package provides a quality whole disk encryption product that would adequately perform its job.